An American Disgrace

The bills lie on the table, unopened. Maybe if I don't look at them or open them they will just go away. I know better but when there is no other solution in sight it is the only one I can think of. I don't answer phone calls that are not from someone I know since it is probally a bill collector. I have been without internet for over a month since i didn't have the $45.00 to pay it and my cellphone was off for a week making it impossible for the doctors or nurses to come by since they call first. The disconnect on my lights is on the 9th. I have no idea where to get the money from. The only good news is that the city will not allow them to cut the lights of due to the extreme heat right now. My little disability check of $693.00 a month has long been gone, the rent, the food, the co-pay on the 27 medications I require, and basic necessities. All of the social services are out of funding to help, there is no family and no friends. At least I have a roof over my head. Still I don't answer the door or go outside. This sucks!! This is what I have to show for the years of hard work I put in since age 15, the taxes I paid, for being a good citizen. God Bless America!!

I sat down to watch the news with the volume very low so no one would know I was at home. Then it really came home to me just how bad it is for the elderly and disabled here in the U.S depending on the megar retirement and disability benefits. The expose was of a 87 year old woman walking with another woman of near the same age. One had lights but no water or gas, the other had water and gas but no lights. Together they went from one house to another, sharing in order for both of them to survive. They could barely walk the 1 block distance between their houses, using canes and each other for stability. The expose also showed the interior of the homes. The roofs were leaking so bad the sheet rock had fallen, the walls were ruined, and the woman had to move her bed constantly to keep it from being soaked. They survive on the social Security Benefits they recieve each month and the goodwill of neighbors and community services. Still they were able to show gratefulness and a positive attitude in such dire times. it made me ashamed of myself.

These are our elderly...they should be in their golden years after many years of hard work and paying in to a system that is now failing them. Both are alone, their husbands passed along before them, the children long married and moved away. In todays society they are for the most part invisible. We don't see them or we don't want to see them as it might tug at our councience. They remind me of my grandparents, my parents and other elderly persons who have touched my life over the years. Instead of sitting on the porch in their rocking chairs they are looking for work at Walmart greeting us as we pass in and out. I see them on the streets pushing  carts with everything in the world they own inside. I see them sleeping on the sidewalks, against abandoned buildings and begging in the streets. It tears at my heart, it shreds my soul. These are someones wife, daughter, sister, mother or grandmother. What happened?? How could we let them down in such a demeaning way? Allow them to live like they are in a third world country?

The thing that angered me the most was that in the same newscast. We are giving $ 8 BILLION dollars in aid to Pakistan. Amazing...humanitarian aid. I am sorry for Pakistan, for Bosnia, for Mexico, but I am even more sorry for the persons living here who are citizens of what is considered the greatest country in the world, and they are destitute, starving, living under bridges, and we are passing out billions in HUMANITARIAN AID to all the other countries. Humanity starts at home. These are our ancestors, on the backs of whom we built this great nation, whom we have to thank for the rights and freedoms we enjoy. They are our sources of greatest wisdom. Please take a look around. this is not only a shame...IT IS AN AMERICAN DISGRACE!!